Recently the UK based company, Cambridge Analytica has been in the news for illegally harvesting user data from Facebook and enabling the use of this stolen data to influence the US Presidential election in 2016 in favour of Donald Trump. Cambridge Analytica has also been linked to several other elections including the Brexit referendum that…
Read More How desi Cambridge Analytica clones are harvesting our dataAn Andhra Pradesh government maintained website has hosted a dashboard app that can search people in 13 districts using “religion” and “caste” amongst other categories. According to Huffingtonpost India, the dashboard in the aforementioned website, allows anyone to search for data based on terms such as “Hindu”, “Muslim”, “Zoroastrian” and even “Dalit”. The most threatening…
Read More An AP government maintained website leaks Aadhaar details, allows search using religion and casteAccording to The Tribune, in a recent twist of events a private operator working at an Aadhaar counter at the District Administration Complex in Jalandhar was found to have saved over 921 e-copies of Aadhaar cards in his personal laptop. When asked , the operator said that he HAD to save it on his laptop…
Read More Operator saves 921 e-copies of Aadhaar in his laptop
Post thumbnail Yavatmal: A group of youngsters, who had volunteered to desilt wells to allow their use as water sources in view of the extreme scarcity of drinking water, found thousands of original Aadhaar cards dumped in a well on Sunday. The cards were packed in nylon gunny bags, and weighed down with rocks. Yavatmal has been…
Read More Thousands of Aadhaar cards found in a well in YavatmalBabubhai Boriwal (53) and Sampatlal Shah (61), owners of “Pandit Deendayal grahak bhandar” shops under Gujarat’s Annapurna Yojana PDS, were arrested by the Crime Branch in Surat. They were using an illegal software that accessed leaked biometric data in order to acquire coupons in the name of different PDS beneficiaries to procure inexpensive rations through…
Read More Gujarat PDS scam and biometrics leakIn a response to an RTI, the UIDAI stated that 210 government websites had leaked Aadhaar data online. leaked data included name, address, other details and Aadhaar numbers for information of general public. Earlier, in May 2017, a study published by the CIS had showed that just 4 government websites had leaked data of 130 million…
Read More RTI response from UIDAI in Nov 2017: 210 government websites leaked Aadhaar data onlineAfter the report by the Tribue that showed that access to Aadhaar data was being sold for Rs 500 on WhatsApp, India Today conducted its own sting operation. In it, they approached various official Aadhaar enrolment centers posing as buyers interested in buying data. Since no one appears to have called the cops on them…
Read More Aadhaar data for sale in enrolment centers for Rs 2-5 per applicantA shocking report in The Tribune states that they purchased access to the complete Aadhaar database including all information provided by Aadhaar number holders to the UIDAI for a mere Rs.500 for the access. The reporter, Rachna Khaira, posing as “Anamika” contacted a WhatsApp phone number 7610063464 and made the payment over PayTM and had a…
Read More Game over. Aadhaar Database breachedIn May 2017, Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) published a study that said that the data of over 130 million Aadhaar card holders had been leaked from just four portals for National Social Assistance Programme, National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, Chandranna Bima Scheme and Daily Online Payment Reports of NREGA. The leaked data included Aadhaar…
Read More Data of 130 million Aadhaar card holders leaked online in May 2017